Global Warming 2016

Believe it or not, there are still people out there excavating old shellac records. Yes, shellac, that's right, as in that form of resin used to make records, before vinyl (alias wax) came around, offering a more durable medium with less surface noise.

But back to those special few 'musical archaeologists' investing their time and money digging up rare treasures to now be digitally preserved for all time. Meet David Murray from Oakland, CA, head of [...]

Among the many great musicians, who passed away in 2015 was the legendary and expressive trombonist Rico Rodriguez. Dave Katz wrote a comprehensive obituary for FACT Magazine, giving insight to the pioneering Jamaican/British ska artist, who worked with The Specials among others:

“As his career progressed, he yielded impressive hybrids that melded ska, jazz, reggae and the niyabinghi music of Rastafari, which affected a wide and diverse audience around the [...]

Anybody familiar with the Tel Aviv or Berlin underground music scene will probably be familiar with the Raw Tapes imprint, home to a host of local beat scene-affiliated artists, the likes of Cohenbeats, Sol Monk, Mo Rayon or the ever so promising Buttering Trio, featuring multi-instrumentalist/singer/songwriter KerenDun, the producer Rejoicer (Bajka a.o.) and bassist Beno Hendler (Balkan Beat Box).

Having released their tremendous debut LP “Toast” back in [...]

Remember that team of dedicated researchers, staff and students of the University of Central Lancashire on a worldwide mission "committed to mapping the sonic landscapes of unique geographic locations”, alias the Global Sound Movement? Remember their recent expedition to Uganda, where they compiled the “Unique Sounds of Uganda” pack of samples and field recordings, totalling over 240 high-resolution loops and 2 GB of rare, royalty-free material for [...]

A few months back, as our very first story actually, we reported on an ambitious Malawi-based prison project initiated by US Grammy-winning record producer Ian Brennan (who now has a total of four Grammy-nominated albums under his wing) along with his Italian wife Marilena Delli, a documentary photographer herself, who travelled to southeast Africa in the summer of 2013 for an incredible, musical human rights project at a local maximum-security facility.

Upon [...]

Wait, what have we here? An Israeli band delivering masterfully soulful covers of classic American Christmas tunes? You better believe it:

This Americana-tinged, Psycho-Punk, Power-Rockabilly band of brothers has thus far managed to elude all attempts at being pigeonholed. Their regular appearances on the Tel Aviv boardwalk have become somewhat of a cult happening on the local scene, ranging from “a transcendental experience” to “a boost of energy [...]

It was a dream come true, not just for the participating musicians, supporters and audiences in attendance, but also on a wider scale, a well overdue cultural step towards restoring peace between two politically hostile countries, namely Iran and Israel.

Following their initial encounter in the German city of Nuremberg back in 2014 and sharing a common vision, two young bands, alias the alternative Teheran-based indie-electronic outfit Langtunes and the [...]

London-based 2015 "Label Of The Year" at Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Awards, Strut Records is considered one of the leading reissue labels with a knack for soul, funk, world sounds, disco, post-punk and industrial music, while also releasing albums by original legends and new world music artists the likes of Mulatu Astatke, Orlando Julius or The Souljazz Orchestra.

Currently they are readying another highly intriguing project on the traditional music of [...]

In what can only be described as one of the very unfortunate and equally threatening side-effects of the current European refugee crisis, the anti-immigrant and anti-muslim incitement of the German-born Pegida movement has quickly gained ground with its polarising rhetoric, even spreading to other countries within less than a year.

'Enough of this monkey business', said the Jewish Monkeys and visited Dresden last October, while in Germany as part of their [...]

As recently reported in the Guardian, the Saharan state of Niger, famous for its Tuareg community and bringing forth world-renowned "desert blues" artists the likes of Bombino, Terakraft and Tinariwen, has now produced a crowdfunded film, based on Prince's 1984 cult classic "Purple Rain".

While Prince is not widely known in West Africa, "the electric guitar has become synonymous with Tuareg culture" and the story of a kid trying to escape his violent life [...]

A few weeks ago, Danish sampling kings Den Sorte Skole (which translates to The Black School) released their much acclaimed and long-awaited fourth longplayer "Indians & Cowboys", a riveting 77-minute, genre-transcending patchwork of obscure samples and interweaving sounds from vinyl records across the globe, made available to the general public on a 'name your price' basis via their website.

In a fundamentally significant and highly recommendable guest [...]

On a recent stroll through the worldwide web we stumbled upon the up and coming Texas three-piece Khruangbin (meaning 'airplane' in Thai). Inspired by the obscure 1960s and 70s Thai funk recordings found on the notorious Monrakplengthai blog as well as Tarantino soundtracks, surf-rock sessions and groundbreaking space jazz explorations, the trio set out to find and define its own spiritual soundscapes in a barn on the Texan countryside.

Their recently [...]